Venezuela’s Second Largest Refinery Restarts Gasoline Production

Venezuela’s Second Largest Refinery Restarts Gasoline Production

PDVSA, the Venezuelan government-owned oil and gas firm, has resolved its technical issues and resumed gasoline production at the nation’s second-largest refinery, Reuters reported citing five sources with knowledge of the matter.

The nation’s supply of gasoline is dependent on the naphtha reformer at the Cardon refinery, which can process 45,000 barrels of oil per day (bbl/d) and creates high-octane gasoline additives.

About a week ago, PDVSA (PDVSA.UL) placed it into operation with an output of about 28,000 bbl/d. One insider told Reuters that the reformer “is now producing.”

The reformer stopped operating at the end of June to undergo maintenance that took longer than the initial 21-day window.

“We are producing 28,000 bbl/d of pure lomito (high-grade gasoline) of 102 octane,” said another source.

The sources claimed that Cardon’s 88,000 bbl/d Fluidized Catalytic Cracking (FCC) unit is still stuck in production.

Restarting the country’s 1.3 million bbl/d grid would ease the country’s chronic supply problems. The grid has been weakened by years of underinvestment and neglect.

The smallest refinery in Venezuela’s refining system, El Palito, which is located on the country’s central coast, stopped producing gasoline at the end of 2021.

Venezuela and Iran’s state-owned National Iranian Oil Engineering and Construction Company announced their deal to restore the refinery in May.

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